Posted by TheShot on 03 Jun 2012 | Filed under: Foreign Brew, Local Brew, Roasting
Opening around Thanksgiving of 2011, this downtown location of Verve clearly ups the design aesthetics and sends a signal across the street of the venerable Lulu Carpenters. If only the coffee service could live up to everything else promised by visual pageantry here. It’s a beautiful, open space with a prime location. A former curiosity [...]
Posted by TheShot on 15 Oct 2009 | Filed under: Beans, Café Society, Local Brew, Machine
This unusual café is situated in the 19th century Octagon — the last surviving remnant of the historic Cooper House complex, which was destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Looking at the aging masonry of the outside façade, you can see a little as to why the rest didn’t make it. Manthri Srinath, owner [...]
Posted by TheShot on 13 Oct 2009 | Filed under: Café Society, Foreign Brew, Local Brew, Roasting
Don’t ask why it’s taken us years to formally review this place. We first got to know this location as the Espresso Royale Caffe dating back to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. However, it was originally known as Lulu Carpenter’s saloon among the old-timers, and Manthri Srinath‘s café opening here (with the building’s earthquake retrofit) [...]
Posted by TheShot on 03 Aug 2009 | Filed under: Beans, Foreign Brew, Quality Issues, Roasting
Holy crap. This is one of those rare finds where a small town and a strip mall can produce some outstanding coffee and espresso that competes with the best. Although we were aware of Coffee Cat’s elevated reputation among the Scotts Valley locals when passing through, at first we were guilty of dismissing it relative [...]
Posted by TheShot on 31 Mar 2009 | Filed under: Barista, Beans, Café Society, Foreign Brew
In the nearly two decades that we’ve been visiting Santa Cruz, they’ve arguably lacked a vibrant café that excels at both coffee and as a student hang out. Recent café openings in town, such as Verve Coffee Roasters, have helped tremendously — but at Verve the focus is squarely on the coffee. (Not necessarily a [...]
Posted by TheShot on 15 Sep 2008 | Filed under: Foreign Brew, Roasting
We first encountered Verve at Slow Food Nation ’08 (SFN), where they contributed beans, baristas, and other support for the event. Originally, they had planned to open this café and roastery in Berkeley. However, one of the owners moved to Santa Cruz and the rest was history. The “joke” from some of the Verve baristas [...]
Posted by TheShot on 09 Jan 2006 | Filed under: Beans, Local Brew
Donna Jones wrote this piece in today’s Santa Cruz Sentinel about the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company: Heady scents drift from Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Co. in downtown Watsonville. Their beans have some limited distribution in San Francisco, but they have a much larger “footprint” in the South Bay. While not my favorite South Bay [...]
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